I Don't Know Why
by Little Miss Sorrow
Summary: Stella manages to bring Mac outside his shell.


_Disclaimed: _As usually I don't own CSI:NY, belongs to CBS as you all should know by now!

A/N: I've got some comments that you want me to write longer stories and here it is, a total of 1131 words, the longest I've ever written on my own (I think). As usually I would like to apologise for any gramatical errors and any miss spellings. Some of the words is used acording the Brithis system beacuse that's what they teatch in Sweden. And I might have done some terrible mistake about the baseball thingy, I don't even know what a baseball looks like.

* * *

**I Don't Know Why  
**_by: La Suede_

_They're not trying to cause you pain  
They're just afraid of loving you  
I don't know why  
I know these things, but I do_

_I don't know why – Shawn Colvin_

I silently watch you sit in your lonesome office day in and day out. It is like you are afraid of venturing outside your domain, afraid to take the first shaking steps outside what you call safe. Because both you and I know that is what your office is, the only place you don't feel alone but not to suffocated by the presence of others. I have tried; God knows I have, to get you to open up to me, to talk to me like we used to do when we still knew each other. I'm not trying to hurt you; I'm trying to help you. You don't see how the others at work distance themselves from you, that I'm the only one who stays. Mac, you scare them, they don't know how to cope with this new brooding man you've become.

Though I have got you to smile from time to time. Like the time when you went to a date with, what's her name, Rose? I even got you to take of your tie. Though I was not completely happy you went on a date with someone else than me, I was still happy for you.

As I collected my things from my desk in the evening and switch off my desk-lamp, I can see that yours still burning. I make my way to the locker room to get my coat and handbag and when I pass your office again the lamp is still on. I walk up the steps to the door, you don't seem to notice me, and softly knock on the glass walls.

"Burning the midnight oil, I see" I state, you look up and meet my gaze.

"Hi, Stella, just working on some backlog…" you wave absent-mindedly with your hand over the numerous case files that are resting on your desk. I'm not buying it; I know you don't want to go home to your empty apartment. But who can blame you? Have you once tasted the feel of having someone to love at home, you're going to miss it so much more when that goes away. You return your attention back to your work and I step inside your office and sit down on the edge of your desk, I know you hate it when I do that. You look back up at me slightly annoyed but I just smile at you and wave your complaint away.

Instead I say: "why don't we go out and get something to eat?"

At first you look like you're going to decline, but them something shifts in your gaze and it becomes softer.

"Sure" you tell me "it's about time I get out of this office".

You put the case files in a neat pile on the desk, take your coat from the back of your seat and tell me to lead the way. We walk silent beside each other, and I notice you have your hands in your pocket, something you rarely have. I remember you once told me you thought it looked sloppy. We walk out side to your care it's an unspoken rule, you're the one that's going to drive and you're going to drive me home afterwards making sure I get in all right. It's very gentlemanly of you, and I admit, I like it.

We stay silent until we are seated at the restaurant and it's not until we've ordered that you tell me completely out of the blue:

"I went to see her to day" I know instantly whom you're talking about. I wait for you to go on, and after a few moments you do: "I told her about you".

I try not to look shocked by that statement, but to be honest I think you notice my surprise because you go on: "I told her how you're always there for me and how you're always all over me to get a life again" we are silent for awhile before:

"I told her to not be angry because of that," you add with a laugh. I smile at that, it's so typical for the Mac I first got to know. After that we return to safer topics, like whether Aiden and Flack are going to stop flirting in the lab and do something about it or if the Yankees are going to win this season or not. We talk for a while about the cases we're working on at the moment, before deciding to call it a night. We both have to get up for work tomorrow morning.

-o-

When we arrive outside my flat I ask, in a stat of light headiness, if you wan to come up for coffee. You agree, and follow me like a dog up the stairs to my door. I get the keys out and open the door to let you in and I follow closely behind you and shut the door behind me. We walk over to the kitchen and you sit down by the table and I start to make a pot of coffee. I place a cup in front of you and add just a little bit of milk to it before I fill it up the rest of the way with coffee, I drink mine black.

"What more did you tell Clair" I ask, I'm afraid to make you upset but my curious nature got the best of me. You contemplate the question for a while before answering,

"That you're right, it is time for me to get a life again," that's when I notice that your ring is gone, "and that I'm hoping that I'm going to start that life with you".

I was completely dumbfounded. I didn't know what to answer to that. Of course I wanted to spend my life with you, but there were so many other aspects of life that would be affected. I think you took my silence the wrong way because the next thing I knew you where making you way out of myflat and down onto the street. I got to my feet at a moments notice and ran after you, I caught you just when you made it to the kerb. I reached out for your arm and turned you to face me. In a loss of words I quoted a silly song I once heard.

"I don't know why I'm so in love with you"; I smiled goofy and leaned in to kiss you. You meet me half way. The hell with other aspects of life.

"I don't know why  
The sky is so blue  
And I don't know why  
I'm so in love with you"

I don't know why – Shawn Colvin


End file.
